1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to hand-held computing devices, and more particularly to an analog input mapping for hand-held computing devices.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Hand-held computing devices run various software applications such as address books, browsers, and games. Some examples of these hand-held computing devices are personal digital assistants (PDAs). Most PDAs include buttons that a user can press to input information into or navigate through the software applications. In one example for PALM PDAs from PalmOne Inc. in Milpitas, Calif., the buttons are for a date book, address book, scroll up, scroll down, to-do list, and memo pad. Some mobile phones that run PDA operating systems also include these buttons.
When new hardware functionality is added or developed for a hand-held computing device platform, existing software applications may be incompatible with or do not utilize the new hardware functionality. One problem is that the existing software applications for previous hand-held computing device platforms need to utilize the new hardware functionality in order to provide a large number of software applications for the current hand-held computing device platforms.
Gaming consoles such as the Playstation PS2 by Sony Computer Entertainment America, Inc. include two analog joysticks in their analog controllers. In order to emulate legacy Atari games, software applications for the PS2 convert the analog input from the analog controller to the Atari's d-pad and button on the joystick. However, these software applications are for gaming consoles and not hand-held computing devices.
What is needed is to utilize new hardware functionality in a current hand-held computing device to emulate a previous hand-held computing device.